930 passages in Modern Compilations & Folklore
Individual passages from Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924), shown in source order. Page 2 of 20.
The wicked kingdom, the Roman authority that crushed Judea after the Temple's fall, once decreed that the Jews should not keep the Sabbath, nor circumcise their children, nor keep ...
The Romans had issued evil decrees against the Jewish people, banning Torah study, forbidding circumcision, outlawing the observance of the Sabbath. The sages were desperate. Someo...
The wicked kingdom once decreed that the Jews should no longer keep the Sabbath, nor circumcise their sons, nor observe the laws of ritual purity the Torah commands. Three commandm...
The Jews being prevented by decree from studying, Pappos met R. Akiba who had defied that decree. Rebuked by Pappos Akiba replied: “A fox on the shore of the sea saw some fish hidi...
When the Romans made it a capital offense to study Torah, Rabbi Akiba continued to teach openly, gathering great assemblies of students in public. Pappos ben Yehuda found him and w...
The Roman Empire had outlawed Torah study. Jews who gathered to learn risked execution. Pappos ben Yehudah, a cautious man, saw Rabbi Akiva publicly teaching Torah in open defiance...
The city of Lod. Lydda, was no stranger to Roman cruelty. But the story of its two most famous martyrs, Pappos and Lulianos, stands out even among the darkest chapters of persecuti...
The emperor's daughter was found murdered in Rome, and the Romans blamed the Jews. An edict was prepared. The city's Jewish community stood under the shadow of a general massacre i...
This exemplum recalls the martyrdom of two brothers, Pappos and Lulianos, well known in rabbinic tradition as Jews executed by Roman authority. Here the emperor figure Trajan conde...
The Roman general Trayanos captured two Jewish brothers, Lulianus and Pappus, in the city of Laodicea and sentenced them to death. Before the execution, Trayanos offered them a tau...
When the heathen conquered the Temple Josef Meshita was asked to go in first. He was told that whatever he brought out should be his. He carried out a golden candlestick, which was...
When the Romans stormed the Second Temple, they faced a problem their swords could not solve: none of them wanted to be the first to walk into the sanctuary. The inner chambers wer...
Jose ben Yoezer of Tzeredah was one of the first of the zugot (pairs), the great paired leaders who guided the Jewish people in the centuries before the common era. He was also one...
Yose ben Yoezer of Tzeredah was being led to his execution during the persecutions of the Hellenistic kings. He was one of the earliest sages, a tzaddik whose teachings stand near ...
Nahum ish Gamzo, also called Nahum of Hamadi used to say, “Everything for the best.” Sent to the Emperor with presents, miracles happened. He came to a place where during the night...
Nahum ish Gamzo, called that because no matter what happened, he always said "Gam zu le-tovah" ("This too is for the best"), was sent by the Jewish community to the Roman Emperor c...
Old Man Planting Charub Tree. Yebamot, f. 63a. Tanh. and B to Levit. Kedoshim, § 8. Midr. Hagadol, Gen. f. 56d, 57a. Exod. R. ch. 2. Levit. R. 25 §5. Eccles. R. 2 § 16. Yalk. § 615...
This exchange from the Exempla of the Rabbis records a sharp theological question put to Rabbi Eleazar by a matrona, a noble Roman woman who often appears in rabbinic stories as a ...
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai carrying the two tablets of the covenant, he found the Israelites dancing around a golden calf. His fury was absolute. He shattered the tablet...
A Roman matron came to Rabbi Eleazar with a sharp theological question. "For the single sin of the golden calf," she asked, "why were the Israelites punished with three different k...
This is the tale of two false prophets among the exiles in Babylon, Ahab ben Kolaya and Zidkia ben Maaseya, whom the prophet Jeremiah condemned, foretelling that the king of Babylo...
FalseProphets in Babylon. Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic court), f. 93 a. J. Sanhedrin, XI, 5. Pesikta, f. 164b, 165a. Pirke de R. Eliezer, ch. 33. Tanh. Levit. Vayyikra, § 6 and ...
Two men in the Babylonian exile claimed to prophesy in the name of the Lord. Their names were Ahab ben Kolayah and Zidkiah ben Ma'aseyah. Their false oracles are mentioned with dis...
This folktale from the Exempla of the Rabbis stages a contest of faith and turns on a hidden truth overheard. A Jew and a heathen disputed about which of their religions was true, ...
A gentile once came to the great sage Shammai with a provocative request: "Convert me to Judaism, but only on the condition that you teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one ...
A non-Jewish man walked into Shammai's study with a straightforward question: "How many laws does Judaism have?" Shammai gave him the honest answer, two. There is the Written Torah...
Hillel the Elder was famous for his extraordinary patience, a patience so deep that his students believed it could not be broken. Two men once wagered four hundred zuz on whether o...
A gentile heard about the honor paid to the high priest and was so taken with it that he wished to become a Jew, hoping that he too might one day hold that exalted office. He came ...
The patience of Hillel was not merely a personal virtue, it was a teaching method that transformed lives. The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) records three separate occasions when difficult, ...
A gentile heard about the honor paid to the High Priest in Jerusalem and decided he wanted the office for himself. He came first to Shammai and asked to convert on the condition th...
This dispute from the Exempla of the Rabbis turns on a problem of arithmetic in the patriarch Jacob's household. A Kuthean, one of the Samaritans whom the rabbis regularly cast as ...
When Jacob fled from his brother Esau and set out on the long road to Haran, he stopped at a place called Bethel and made a vow to God. "If God will be with me and guard me on this...
A Kuthean, a Samaritan, once came to Rabbi Meir with an accusation against the patriarch Jacob. It is preserved as exemplum No. 32 in Moses Gaster's 1924 collection. "Your ancestor...
This exchange from the Exempla of the Rabbis records a challenge brought to Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, the sage who preserved rabbinic learning after the destruction of the Second T...
A gentile once confronted Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai with a cutting observation: "Your ceremony of the red heifer looks exactly like witchcraft. You take a cow, burn it, grind it up,...
A pagan once approached Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, the sage who had smuggled himself out of besieged Jerusalem inside a coffin and refounded Judaism at Yavneh. And said bluntly, "...
This pair of exempla preserves two stories of sages who resisted sexual temptation while held in Roman hands. In the first, Rabbi Zadok, a tanna remembered for his long fasts in th...
Rabbi Tzadok was a man of extraordinary discipline. The Talmud (Kiddushin 40a) records that he was once tempted in a way that tested every fiber of his righteousness. And his respo...
A certain Nathan was saved from committing sin with a famous Hetaera in the Island of the Sea through observing the commandment of the fringes, because on seeing them he was remind...
Nathan de § us it a. Sabbath, f. 56b. Sanhedrin, f. 31b. Menahot, f. 44a. cf. Gittin, f. 56a. Sifre, Numb. Shelah § ii5- P- 35b,, Tanya". Tana de be Eliahu Zutta, ch. 22. Maamadot,...
A Jewish man named Nathan traveled to an island and was on the brink of committing a serious sin with a famous courtesan. The room was prepared. The door was closed. He was about t...
This story, drawn from the Exempla of the Rabbis, recounts a frightening episode in the life of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, one of the great sages of the generation after the Templ...
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was one of the greatest sages of his generation, a man whose knowledge of Torah was said to be like a plastered cistern that never lost a drop. But even ...
This exemplum preserves a famous debate between the Roman governor Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiba over the merits of charity. The Roman poses a sharp theological challenge. If God ha...
38- Wiinsche, J. Talmud, p. 148 f. Griinbaum, Jud.Deutsch Deu ts ch. Chres t. p. 400. Singer, Z. V. Vlksd. II, p. 298. Ancona, II Cavaliero Senso, p. 97, 130; 151, 187. _ Gaster, C...
The Roman governor Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva argued often. Once they argued about tzedakah. “Akiva,” said Turnus Rufus, “if your God decreed that a certain man...
This tale from Gaster's Exempla of the Rabbis teaches that even a small portion of Torah study can carry an outsized reward. A child has learned only part of the book of Genesis, t...
A Jewish child had learned the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis, just the beginning, nothing more, before he was captured and thrown into a Roman prison. He was young, alone...
